Missing At Christmas
by Starhawk
Summary: AU: A poorly timed snowstorm and an unyielding highway patrol force Princess Shayla and her escort to change their travel plans.


_Disclaimer: Buena Vista owns the Power Rangers. This is, if not a crossover between Wild Force and Time Force, then at least a convergence of Rangers from both teams. And when I say "Rangers" I mean "people those Rangers might have been in another universe." The story is named for Ann Cochran's song, "Someone Is Missing At Christmas," which I've never heard and don't know the lyrics to._

_Dedication: For my sister, who insists that this song makes her think of Merrick and Shayla, and who unrelatedly remarked, "I'm just a sucker for a story where people get trapped in an inn at Christmas and there's a cat. Write a story where people get trapped in an inn at Christmas and there's a cat, and I'll like it."_

**Missing At Christmas  
by Starhawk**

Merrick Baliton hated snow. He especially hated it when he was standing out in it, on the side of the road with the wind whipping it into his face, emergency lights flashing all around and an angry voice snapping in his ear. Really, there had to be better things he could be doing with his time.

"Yes, sir," he said, for the dozenth time. It hadn't been that simple yet, but there was nothing else he could say. As predicted, the voice continued, as though it hadn't made its point several times over by now.

He watched Mr. Myers trying to reason with the highway patrol--or what passed for it around here--and took some comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only one being given a hard time. There was absolutely no way they were going to be allowed to continue on toward their destination in this weather. Merrick would never have made this call if there were any doubt in his mind.

"Of course, sir," he said, during the appropriate pause. And the voice rattled on.

Mr. Collins was leaning into the wind as he headed back toward their cars, giving Myers an amused look that Merrick could barely make out through the flying snow. Myers didn't so much as glance in his direction, but arguing with an officer wasn't going to get them anywhere in weather like this. Collins seemed to understand that, and with nothing more than a hand to Myers' shoulder, he put an end to his tirade.

"I realize that, sir," Merrick told the voice in his ear. "We have no choice. We're being redirected now--I'll call you as soon as I have more information."

He snapped his cell phone shut with finality and buried his hand in the pocket of his jacket. Letting go of the phone at last, he clenched his frigid fingers together in a futile effort to restore feeling to their tips. He ignored the ice-encrusted hair that hung in his face and concentrated instead on the intent expressions of their local security escort.

"There's a little place up ahead where we can stay," Collins told him. He had to speak up to be heard over the wind. "I got the number from the patrol and called ahead--they're willing to put us up for the night, and the storm's supposed to blow through by morning. We should be able to dig out then."

"I don't understand," Merrick grumbled, frustrated and willing to throw the complaint at anyone who would listen. How could a country run like this? "How can they close the roads?"

"It's a small town," Collins told him. "They only have so many plows, and they have to keep the roads to the hospital open."

"Come on," Myers interrupted impatiently. "We'll put on our lights and you can follow us up the road."

"Hey!" The officer was waving at them as he trudged back to join them.

Merrick's freezing fingers felt the phone in his pocket vibrate, and he pulled it free with a sigh. He couldn't read the display in the dark. Their headlights revealed nothing but white-out conditions, and the flashing lights painted colors on the thickly swirling snow. Conditions were atrocious, there was no question about that.

"Baliton," he said through clenched teeth. He really hated snow.

Instead of the voice he expected, he was greeted by a cheerful and very familiar curiosity. "What's happening, Merrick? If you don't tell us, we've decided to get out and find out for ourselves."

He turned away from the others to hide a smile that even the cold couldn't freeze. "Why did I give you a phone?" he muttered, even though the odds of anyone overhearing in this blizzard were next to none.

"Oh, something about security," the woman on the other end said lightly. "As always. What's going on?"

He stared at the car that had pulled off behind their official escort. He imagined that he could see through the darkened windows to the women inside, both in clothing that was completely impractical for this climate. Both, no doubt, giggling to each other over this latest adventure.

"We have to get off the road," he said. "There's a place up ahead where we can stay the night, until the snow lets up a little."

The response was nothing less than he'd expected. "Oh, how wonderful!"

He couldn't help rolling his eyes, trying not to let his smile creep into his voice. "No, Princess, it's not wonderful. The situation is totally out of control, and your father is going to have my head."

He heard her laugh. "Don't be silly, Merrick. You don't control the weather."

"He seems to think I do," he muttered.

"Don't worry," she said with utter confidence. "I'll talk to him." There was a pause, and then she asked innocently, "Would you like me to call him now?"

"Don't you dare." He heard her laugh again, and he knew she was teasing. "If he finds out you have that thing, I'll never hear the end of it. _You'll _never hear the end of it."

"That's true," she agreed, her delighted voice warm in his ear. "Better if he has to go through you before he can get to me."

He stared through the snow at the car. "You're evil, Princess."

"Ambassador?"

He turned, keeping the phone to his ear. The cold didn't seem so important now that there was a friendly voice on the other end. "Just a minute," he told her, giving Collins as expectant a look as he could manage in the blowing snow.

"The plow's going to escort us," Collins told him. "We've agreed that it's better if your car follows him as closely as possible. I'll drive, if you don't mind--I'm more used to this weather, after all. Eric will bring up the rear."

"Princess," he said, not taking his eyes off of Collins. "Will you allow Mr. Collins to take the wheel?" He knew what she would say, but there was no need to let the man get any ideas.

"Oh, of course," she agreed. She didn't even ask why.

He nodded to Collins. "That's acceptable," he said shortly.

"Great." Collins gestured to his partner, and Myers stomped off to their giant vehicle alone. "We'd better get going, then. The weather's only going to get worse."

Merrick wasn't convinced that was possible, and he really didn't want to find out. So he allowed himself to be hustled back to the car, snow and slush sliding under his feet as he struggled up to the passenger door. He tried to brush some of it off before he got in but it was a futile effort, and between him and Collins, they brought half the storm inside with them before they got the doors closed.

He spent half the trip on the phone and the other half eyeing the space in front of the car in worried silence. He assumed there was a road there. The plow had to be driving on something, and he could just make out its whirling yellow lights through the constant barrage of wind-driven snow. They crawled along in its wake, tense quiet pervading the car during the times when he wasn't trying to explain their situation to someone in a snow-free climate half a world away.

He couldn't even tell when the plow turned off the road, but suddenly the lights of a building loomed out of the blizzard and the car slowed to a complete stop. Another shadow crept up beside it a moment later, headlights flicking off as the second vehicle came to a halt. The plow made a wide circle before disappearing back into the white darkness.

"Well, we made it," Collins announced. "Willie's Roadhouse Cafe. Owner says he's got a couple rooms upstairs we can have."

How quaint, Merrick thought irritably. A truck stop in the middle of nowhere. He was sure it was a far cry from the airport hotel where they had planned to spend the night, and he hadn't been particularly fond of that place to begin with. This trip just got better.

He pushed his way out into the snow again, wincing as the icy wind buried itself in his hair and the snow barely melted on his skin. He knocked on the back window to warn them, then waited a moment before pulling it open. The women weren't dressed for this. And if either of them caught cold they could forget ever visiting this place again.

"Thank you Merrick! Oh, Sparkle, it's all right..." She would be first out of the car, no matter how often they had tried to hammer some sense of caution into her. "There, there, don't look--that's right, we're going somewhere nice and warm."

Wrapped in a hooded cape that fell all the way to the ground, she didn't even seem to notice the snow plastering itself against her side. The hissing grey thing in her arms noticed, though, and she hunched over it, cooing sympathetically. "It's all right," she said, trying to cover the creature so that no part of it was exposed to the elements. "We're going inside now."

"This way, Ambassador," Collins' voice interjected. "Princess? If you'll follow me?"

Merrick sent a silent apology to the princess' traveling companion for not waiting. But the princess had turned to blindly follow Collins, and he wasn't about to let her out of his sight. She slipped in the snow, her balance hindered by the bundle in her arms, and stepped up to catch her just in time. He saw her head turn, could imagine the smile on her face, and he wrapped an arm around her waist as they struggled toward the building.

The door was flung open before they could even reach it. He could hear the low grumble of welcome from a man who must be the truck stop owner, heard Myers' sharp counterpoint, and then Collins was coming back out as they stumbled through the doorway. "Where's your friend?" he asked tersely.

"Here." Another caped figure blew into the doorway, crowding them all out of the way as she turned to struggle with the door. It slammed shut behind her, some of the snow falling from her cape with the violence of the gesture. "Is the weather like this often?" she added, tossing her hood back and giving her head a sharp shake.

"'Fraid so," the owner's voice rumbled. "It's a little early for it, though. Usually get this sort of thing later in the season."

"We're supposed to fly out tomorrow," Merrick said. "What are the chances of that happening?"

"Not good," the man said, with remarkable unconcern. "I got a couple of young men here who'll tell you tales of the airport, if you're curious."

Collins was peeling off his outer layer, slapping his clothes as he went in an effort to dislodge some of the snow before it melted. "We're curious," he said. "These are some pretty important folks we've got here, and they're supposed to be on their way out of the country tomorrow."

In response, the man raised his voice and yelled, "Danny! Max! You boys around?"

There was a series of thumps from the back room, and a moment later two men were framed by the saloon style doors behind a countertop surface that was probably a bar. "Yo!" the shorter one declared. Then, "Hey! Our new guests, right?"

"Hi!" His friend was just as enthusiastic. "Isn't this storm incredible?"

This was apparently addressed to them, but Merrick didn't see any reason to respond to it. The owner waited a moment, maybe to see if anyone would answer, then he told the men, "They say they were on their way to the airport. They're supposed to be on a flight out tomorrow."

"Ooh..." The taller of the two looked sympathetic. "That's not gonna happen. Sorry. Our plane was the last one down before they closed the runway."

"Yeah, they started diverting flights even before we got in," his friend added. "Even if they can reopen the second the snow lets up, the delays'll probably run into tomorrow night."

Merrick glanced at the princess, but she was clearly more worried about her cat than she was about their travel plans. She had set the short-haired ball of fur down on a nearby table while she pulled the hood of her cape back and went to some trouble to free her hair, and the cat was not impressed. It had hunched down, ears flat and tail twitching violently.

Merrick knew how it felt.

"Well, I know it's not home," the owner was saying. "But it's better than traveling on Christmas, right? 'Specially in this weather. I'm afraid I've only got the two rooms left upstairs, but there's a couch in the back--"

"Oh, hey, we can bunk together," one of the men said quickly. Either Danny or Max. Merrick didn't know which was which. "We'll share a room. Then you'll have three. Right, Max?"

"Right, sure, no problem," the shorter one agreed. Max, then. "We'll go move our stuff!"

Which still left the five of them with three rooms, but it looked like it couldn't be helped. The owner, who introduced himself just before he led them upstairs, told them they were welcome to leave their outerwear by the door where it could drip dry. Collins and Myers took him up on the offer, but the women kept their capes and Merrick frankly didn't think he was much dryer without his jacket anyway.

Besides, he got his own room. He was careful not to smirk about that, since it was after all a very small and poorly furnished room. But there was only one bed to a room, and Collins and Myers were certainly more willing to share with each other than either of them was with him. The princess would stay with her bodyguard, of course. And Merrick would be next door--he was careful to put them at the end of the hallway, so that anyone coming up the stairs would have to get past him to reach their room.

There were only two other people at the truck stop, a couple staying at the near end of the hall who came out to see what all the fuss was when they swarmed onto the second floor. Students, as it turned out, and they were the only people other than the owner who were at Willie's Roadhouse because they'd planned to be. Which seemed vaguely odd to Merrick, especially since most people in the country were about to celebrate a major holiday, but...

"Snowboarding," the man explained. Cole, he'd said his name was. "We came out for the snowboarding."

"No one's on campus during Christmas anyway," the woman with him added. Alyssa. Girlfriend? Wife? Merrick didn't know, but they were clearly together. "We thought we might as well take a vacation when everyone else did."

Merrick was willing to dismiss them, but Collins engaged the couple in polite conversation while the rest of them worked out the room arrangements. Merrick left his door open while he dropped his jacket and removed his boots with reluctance. It wasn't that he wanted to run around in his socks, but the alternative was sopping wet footwear that might take days to dry. Of course, all of their extra clothes were at the hotel.

He tried to comb some of the melting ice out of his hair before venturing back out into the hallway, which was empty now but not quiet. There was the sound of moving furniture drifting up the stairs, but it didn't quite drown out the muffled conversation from the rooms on either side of his. He ignored Collins and Myers while he slapped a tiny motion detector on the inside of the women's doorframe. They knew he did it--her bodyguard would probably correct his placement when she left--and it was part of his job to know when either of them came or went.

Her bodyguard's voice was suddenly very close to the door. "He thinks I'm an interpreter," the woman said, in a way that might have sounded like a complaint from anyone else. From her though, even muffled by the door, the tone was perfectly composed.

"You are an interpreter." Merrick could hear the princess' reply drift out from deeper in the room, and he shook his head in disgust. Privacy was a luxury they would not be afforded here.

"Among other things!" She must be standing right behind the door, but what she was doing, he couldn't fathom. "Somehow," she continued, "I don't think he's the type to be interested in higher education."

Merrick waved his hand in front of the motion detector, and he felt the cell phone in his pocket vibrate. He pulled it out, noted the message, and nodded once. Satisfactory.

"Oh, Sparkle, don't do that," the princess admonished. "You have a perfectly nice bed over here."

"Besides," her bodyguard added. "He dyes his hair. He knows how to wear a beret. And he accepts long distance travel assignments with his partner. He's probably g--"

The door swung open abruptly on her last word, and she stopped just as fast. "Hello, Merrick." The woman had admirable poise.

He stepped past her into the room without invitation. "I could hear every word out in the hallway," he told them. "Don't say anything in here that you wouldn't want the entire building to know about."

"Merrick, would you set these at a reasonable height?" The princess' bodyguard was, as predicted, not impressed by his placement of the motion detector. She plucked it from the doorframe with exasperating ease, of course making the phone in his pocket vibrate the entire time she fiddled with it.

In revenge, he remarked, "He wears a ring."

She looked up sharply, and he smiled. "A college ring," he clarified. "Collins must have been interested in higher education at _some_ point."

She rolled her eyes at him, slapping the detector back in the exact same place it had been before. "There," she told him. "_That's_ better."

"I think Sparkle is hungry," the princess said, breaking their mock standoff with her worried tone. "And of course I don't have any food for her... do you supposed Willie could provide something?"

Merrick didn't bother telling her that the cat would eat as well as he did if it made her happy. Instead he just extended his hand toward the door and inclined his head. "I'll accompany you while you find out, if you like."

He ignored the smirk her bodyguard gave him when the princess took his arm instead. Of course she wouldn't precede him out of the room. Her bodyguard really should have gone first, but she clearly had no intention of joining them in a search for cat food.

Merrick decided to forgive her. It wasn't often that he had the princess on his arm in such an informal setting. It was almost enough to make him forget about the cold drip trickling down his neck, and the wet cuffs of sleeves and pants that made every step uncomfortable. He thought wistfully of the warmth of home.

"Oh!" The princess' delighted exclamation made him take a second look as they came down the stairs. The tables in the middle of the room had been pushed together, and one of the students--Alyssa--was setting out plates and silverware. The other one was helping Danny secure a tree at the end of the bar, while Max stood back and directed them.

Merrick didn't see anything particularly delightful about the scene, but Alyssa looked up and waved at them. "Hi Princess!" she called. "Do you celebrate Christmas? Willie had a tree out back!"

"I'm afraid I don't know that much about Christmas," the princess admitted, unperturbed by the other woman's easy familiarity. "But that's a beautiful tree!"

"It'll be more beautiful when the boys get done with it," Alyssa promised, smiling. "They took most of the ornaments off to move it. Willie said we might as well bring it out if you were all going to be stuck here for Christmas anyway."

"Hey." The owner stuck his head out, hand cupped over the phone in his hand as he leaned through the doors behind the counter. "You boys got four-wheel drive in that flashy vehicle of yours?"

The question was apparently directed at Myers, who was sitting at one end of the bar with his arms folded and a forbidding expression on his face. If he was watching anything, it was Collins, who was standing in the far corner talking quietly to his cell phone. His attention had been caught by Willie's entrance, though, and he nodded curtly.

"I got a woman off the road," the owner said, holding up the phone in explanation. "Can't get her car out of the ditch. You think you could give her a lift?"

Myers didn't look happy about it, but then, Myers hadn't looked happy about anything since Merrick had met him. He gave another nod, but he made no move to get up. "Get directions," he ordered. "Won't be able to find a car in this without them."

Willie waved him off, ducking back through the doors, and Myers sighed loudly. "Wes," said. His voice momentarily silenced the conversation around the tree, but Collins just held up one hand to indicate he should wait and kept talking.

Warmth left his side as the princess let go of his arm and glided across the room to Alyssa. "Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked, looking genuinely interested in the proceedings. The other woman didn't seem surprised by her offer--indeed, she pulled the princess into her meal preparations without batting an eye.

Merrick watched for a moment, making sure Alyssa understood what she was doing. The two of them seemed to be of equivalent enthusiasm levels, though, and they settled into an easy chatter that reminded him of the princess and her bodyguard. It wasn't always so easy for her to make friends, so he just shook his head and went in search of the cat food himself.

The back room was actually a kitchen, as it turned out, and Willie was just getting off the phone when Merrick pushed his way through the doors. The owner pointed at him as he hung up, saying, "Let me guess. Cat food."

Merrick paused, blinking. "How did you know?"

The man snorted, but all he said was, "Lucky guess. I've got a mouser around the place, but I don't know if her usual fare will be up to your standards. You wait just a minute, and I'll get these directions to the boys."

Merrick stepped away from the doors to let him pass, but he watched while the owner yelled for "the boys." He didn't doubt that Willie would refer to him as "boy" too, given the chance, but for now he found a perverse pleasure in watching Myers and Collins put up with it. Myers in particular seemed annoyed by it, even if he was currently trying to get Collins to flip for the chore of going back out in this storm.

Collins agreed on the condition that whoever won had to clear the car, to which Myers reluctantly agreed. That, as far as Merrick was concerned, totally negated the point of the deal, since it meant that they would both have to go out in the snow anyway. But Myers called the coin toss, and Collins seemed to take an unholy glee in telling him he'd lost.

Willie gave him the directions, ignoring the way the two of them continued to argue as they pushed their way out into the blizzard. He turned back to Merrick, picking up where he'd left off. "As I was saying, not gourmet fare, but you're welcome to as much as you want."

"She's not in a position to be choosy," Merrick told him, following him through the kitchen.

He saw Willie shook his head. "Not a long time cat owner, are you, son." He opened another door and pulled out a medium sized bag of--something that had a cat on it. "If she won't eat it, I'm sure we can scrounge up some table scraps for her later.

"Here," he added, retrieving some more things. "Take a couple of bowls... there's a litter box down here, if you want to bring her through and show it to her sometime. I leave the door to my place cracked so mine can come and go--I'll show you."

He left the cat food out, handed the bowls to Merrick, and then gestured for him to follow. The door on the other side of the kitchen led to a homey little office, with stairs at the back that must lead to the owner's rooms. Willie pointed out the litter box, and before they left Merrick noticed the conspicuously bare spot on the opposite wall.

"Yeah," Willie said, when his gaze lingered a moment too long. "That's where the tree came from. I always have one, but Alyssa and Cole don't celebrate, so I didn't see any reason to bring it out. Then when this storm hit, and all of you started pouring in... well." He shrugged. "The boys seem to like it."

Merrick was starting to see the benefit of a generic label that one applied to everyone. The owner could be talking about specific "boys," or every "boy" in the building, and no one would be the wiser. It certainly had potential as a diplomatic ploy.

"You make yourself at home," Willie was saying. "Show your princess around whenever you like, and let me know if there's anything else you need. Anything I should know about cooking for you?"

"The princess doesn't eat meat," Merrick said automatically. "Religious preference."

"Sure, that's no problem," Willie agreed. "You?"

It took him a moment to realize that the man was asking about him specifically. "No, I'll eat whatever you make. And thank you," he added. "We appreciate your hospitality. Especially on such short notice."

"The pleasure's mine," Willie said, with what sounded like total conviction. "Alyssa and Cole were good enough to come and spend the holiday with me, but I gotta say, I like having a crowd around the place."

"I can imagine." Merrick couldn't really, but he was willing to guess. "Must be nice to have someone to celebrate with."

"Well, I wish you all could be with your families, of course," Willie told him. "But since you can't, I'm sure happy to take in as many as I can feed."

A crash from the front drew them both out of the kitchen, which was too bad because Willie seemed like an unusually reasonable person. He was easy enough to talk to, and more than that he was straightforward, which wasn't something Merrick was used to counting on in everyday interactions. He made a note to speak with the owner again should the opportunity present itself.

Out in the main room, there was no sign to indicate the source of the noise. But Max waved from the direction of the tree and pointed at the bar stool he was standing on. "Sorry about that!" he called cheerfully. "Someone kicked it out of the way while I wasn't looking!"

Danny's sheepish expression left no doubt who that "someone" was, and he shrugged a little. "I needed to see the tree from every angle," he explained.

The front door banged open and Collins stumbled in, brushing snow from his coat as he came and forcing the door shut behind him. "Eric's on his way," he announced to the room at large. "He made it to the road, at least, and he's got his phone with him if he gets into trouble."

"The car's not far," Willie said, "but it'll take him a while to get there in this weather. Figure we should hold dinner until he gets back. I'll put on some hot drinks to tide us over. What'll everyone have?"

They would all be eating together, then. He should have expected that. The owner was clearly the only staff here, and the new arrangement of tables in the main room indicated that the others guests planned to share the meal. At least that would make the princess happy. She didn't like to eat alone--to his occasional irritation.

The princess' bodyguard appeared in the middle of the drink-ordering process, and she immediately volunteered to help serve and distribute the drinks. The owner assured her that she didn't need to, but she was not a woman one argued with once she'd set her mind to something. So she disappeared out back with Willie, the princess joined the other guests around the tree, and Collins set to work finding reliable traffic and weather reports on the radio.

Normally, this would have left Merrick pleasantly free of responsibility for a few moments. His phone chose that moment to ring, however, and as soon as he was done with security he had to contact both the hotel and the airport before calling them back and providing proof that he was doing everything he could. He was just waiting for the moment his phone rang again and it was actually the princess' father on the phone, demanding to hear her voice.

The smell of dinner had permeated the entire building by the time he was done. Someone had switched the radio over to music that was only vaguely familiar to him, even after spending most of the last week in this country. And Myers had finally returned with his off-road rescue, a woman that Merrick took for military at first glance.

She had tossed a duffel bag on the floor and was shaking snow out of her hair by the time he'd stuffed his phone back into his pocket. She had something of an audience, he noted, leaning back against one of the tables that still lined the walls. When she turned, he could see what appeared to be a name insignia reading "Earhardt" on the front of her green coveralls.

"But why didn't the highway patrol stop you?" Alyssa was asking. As the shortest and seemingly most friendly member of the group, she had undisputed claim to the front row of the crowd gathering around the latest arrival.

"They did," Earhardt said briefly. She was pulling gloves off of her hands and she paused long enough to point to her insignia. "They saw my CAP uniform and let me go."

At this distance, the printing on the symbol above her name was illegible. He could make out some sort of golden eagle, though, and he thought the bird was associated with the country's military. He took it as confirmation of his original assumption until Alyssa replied.

"Civil Air Patrol?" The student looked worried. "You weren't on your way to an emergency, were you?"

"Coming back from a search and rescue," Earhardt said, tossing her gloves on the floor beneath the coat rack. "On my way home for Christmas, actually. It figures... I finally get some time off, and look what happens."

"Too bad your car's not as bad-ass as you think you are," Myers muttered.

"It was supposed to go into storage last month," Earhardt snapped. Merrick raised an eyebrow for the first time he'd seen her lose her composure. "Things happen."

"Well, we're all glad you're okay," Alyssa said, and her smile looked totally genuine. "I'm Alyssa. It's nice to meet you."

Earhardt gave Myers a final sour look before gracing Alyssa with a small smile. "Taylor Earhardt," she said, holding out her hand. "You get driven in by the storm too?"

Alyssa took her hand with a delighted laugh. "No, my fiance and I were here on vacation when the snow started." She indicated the man behind her, and he reached around to shake Earhardt's hand too.

"Cole Evans," he said with a smile. "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah," Earhardt said. "You too."

"Everyone else is in the same position you are," Alyssa continued, managing to look moderately sympathetic. "Except Willie, of course."

"You make yourself at home," Willie called, when Earhardt looked around. He was standing over by the bar, watching the scene as closely as Merrick, if from a different angle. "'Fraid these folks have filled up the rooms, but I got a couch out back that's not too uncomfortable."

"You can have my room." Merrick felt obliged to offer, even if it would put him farther away from the rest of his party. He'd seen the couch Willie was talking about and he was pretty sure that, as long as he left the doors open, no one would be able to get up or down the stairs without him knowing.

Earhardt's gaze settled on him, and the condescending look she gave him made his spine stiffen. "No, thanks," she said coldly. "I may be a woman, but I bet I could teach you a thing or two about roughing it."

He just shrugged, not bothering to reply. He'd bet she couldn't, but he wasn't going to lose a bed over it. If she wanted the couch, she was welcome to it.

Myers' partner came to the rescue with a deliberate peace offering. "Wes Collins," he said, holding out his hand as Alyssa and Cole had done. "I'm Eric's partner."

"You're a brave man," Earhardt replied, clasping his hand momentarily. Then, "I owe him for the lift."

Myers, who had clearly been about to say something, closed his mouth at that.

"I'm Danny." Danny eagerly took his turn in the ritual of introductions, and his friend was right behind him.

"Max," he said, apparently unfazed by the amused look he received from Earhardt.

She turned her attention to the women next, gaze sliding over Cole and Alyssa to land inquiringly on the princess. Merrick got ready to jump in, and the princess didn't disappoint. "My name is Shayla," she said, very innocently.

"She's more appropriately addressed as 'Princess,'" Merrick drawled, ignoring the look she shot him in favor of a pointed glance at Earhardt. He was just doing his job, after all.

Somewhat to his surprise, Earhardt didn't bat an eye. "I see," she said equably. "Nice to meet you, Princess."

"Don't mind Merrick," the princess told her. "I'm afraid he's a little bit... overprotective of me."

Merrick rolled his eyes. Nice hesitation, princess. That had been a perfectly calculated stammer, no real hesitance about it at all, but calling her on it would only escalate the formality. He just returned Earhardt's smirk with a bland stare of his own.

"Jennifer," the princess' bodyguard introduced herself. Like the princess, she didn't make any move to shake Earhardt's hand. "I'm the princess' interpreter."

Earhardt raised an eyebrow at that. "Interpreter?" she repeated, eyeing both of them skeptically. "For what? Your English sounds fine to me."

"This may come as a shock to you," Myers put in dryly, "but not everyone in the world speaks English."

"I don't remember asking you," Earhardt retorted. "Don't you have other things to be doing? Shoveling snow? Rescuing kittens? Carrying bags," she added sweetly, glancing at her duffel bag.

"Thought you were a woman who knew how to rough it," Myers returned. "What, you can't take the tough life without a man there to do the heavy lifting?"

"Eric." Collins interjected when Earhardt started to fume. Turning a charming smile on the woman in question, he offered, "I'll carry your bag, if you like."

The look was totally wasted on her. "I can do it myself," Earhardt snapped. "Sign your friend up for a course in interpersonal relations while you're at it."

"Yeah," Myers muttered, as she grabbed her bag and swung it over her shoulder. "One of us could use it."

"I'll show you where Willie's office is," Alyssa said with a smile, and her cheer seemed perfectly natural despite the forced timing. "And we were just about to have dinner--is chicken and wild rice all right with you?"

"It's fine," Earhardt grumbled, following with a last sour look for Myers. "How long until they get the plows running again?"

"You'd know better than us," Alyssa told her, and she somehow managed to sound more apologetic than reproachful. "You have the best idea of what the roads look like... although the weather report for tonight doesn't sound good."

Merrick missed the rest of their conversation as they disappeared behind the bar and more immediate voices drowned them out. With the latest excitement past, talk once again turned to food and how best to go about serving it. The problem wasn't that no one wanted to help, it was that no one wanted to wait any longer, and this made them more likely to get in each other's way.

He took the opportunity to check on Sparkle, since the princess seemed totally distracted. He brought up food and water, neither of which seemed to appeal to the cat in any way. She was curled rather pathetically on the princess' cape--her wet cape--and she didn't do more than give him a baleful glare when he went to pick her up. With that kind of reaction, he figured now was as good a time as any to introduce her to the litterbox.

He carried her downstairs to Willie's office while everyone was still coming and going from the kitchen. The cat sniffed the litterbox a few times before turning up her nose, but she wasn't nearly so critical of Willie's cat's food. He was wondering if he ought to take it away from her when the owner walked in.

Willie chuckled when he saw what the cat was doing. "Always looks better in someone else's bowl, doesn't it."

"I can take her back upstairs," Merrick offered, but Willie shook his head.

"It's fine," the owner told him. "Let her have the run of the place if you want. It's pretty safe here. Least she shouldn't be able to get outside."

As if she'd try in weather like this, Merrick thought.

He didn't register Willie's sidelong glance until after the owner had spoken. "It's a patient man who takes care of someone else's animal," he remarked.

Merrick returned the look. "Did she send you to check on the cat?"

"No," Willie said easily. There was a pause that Merrick thought had to be deliberate, and then he added, "She sent me to check on you."

He felt a smile threaten, and he looked away in a futile effort to hide the expression.

Willie saw it. "Nothing wrong with loving someone, son," he chided gently.

He shook his head, unwilling to make that admission directly. "Fastest way to get me fired, though."

"Ah." Willie rocked back on his heels, nodding once. "So that's how it is."

Merrick didn't answer.

"Figure we oughta get some dinner," the owner said at last. "They've probably taken my kitchen apart by now, but I'm pretty sure they can't ruin the food."

Merrick gave the cat a final glance, but she seemed totally preoccupied by a stranger's cat bowl. He left her and followed Willie out, through the kitchen and into the main room. It was predictably noisy and chaotic, but food had indeed found its way to the table and everyone seemed to be in relatively good spirits.

The conversational dynamic during the meal provided him with a decent distraction. Jen had always been able to hold people's attention when she wanted to--he was never sure whether to attribute that to her training or her personality--but Earhardt matched her without even trying. Between the two of them, there was nothing dull about a meal that could easily have been not only boring but also downright uncomfortable.

Instead, a token amount of discomfort was provided by the obvious and as yet unexplained animosity between Earhardt and Myers, and everyone else at the table seemed to be on their best behavior to make up for it. Merrick was willing to bet that it was Earhardt's example that kept the princess' bodyguard from flirting too outrageously with Collins, and that was yet another unlooked for relief as far as he was concerned. On top of that, Alyssa clearly shared with the princess that gift of making everyone smile, and the two of them made everyone else feel appreciated.

It didn't come out until the middle of the meal that Earhardt was actually a storm chaser, and the Civil Air Patrol was a volunteer service that she participated in on the side. The princess wanted to know what a storm chaser was, which saved Merrick from asking, and Earhardt explained it very succinctly. It seemed that she made a living flying other people, from researchers to tourists, into and around high-intensity storms for various reasons.

She concluded with, "Yes, the irony of getting caught in a blizzard is killing me. My coworkers will mock me for months. Let's move on."

This, however, started a whole new discussion about weather and geography, to which Max and Danny were unexpected contributors. Youth notwithstanding, they were very well-traveled. Willie was also surprisingly knowledgeable, though his experience tended more toward a very thorough understanding of the contributing factors in local weather patterns.

The owner had taken a break to bring out dessert when Merrick's phone rang for what had to be the twentieth time since their travel plans had changed. The princess' eyes caught his across the table, and her expression was sympathetic. It was that look that kept the resignation out of his voice as he got to his feet and turned away to answer the phone.

He'd been right. This time it was no one less than her father himself. Merrick glanced over his shoulder, realized he had the attention of everyone at the table, and he gave the princess an inquiring look as he pointed wordlessly to the phone. She shook her head.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said smoothly. "She's eating right now. I'll tell her you called."

That did nothing to deter a long-winded and overly concerned response that made Merrick wonder what exactly they'd been telling him about conditions here. So it wasn't home. For all his complaints to the contrary, it wasn't the center of the uncivilized world.

He was so distracted that he didn't notice the princess get up, and she caught him by surprise when she reached out and simply took the phone from his hand. "Hello, Daddy," she said, rolling her eyes at him. "I'm fine. We're all fine here, except for Merrick, whose phone has been ringing non-stop."

She paused, and he could hear the king's voice faintly from the phone.

"Yes, I know," she said. "But I just talked to you this morning, and this is the... is it the fifth call in three hours, Merrick?

"No," she amended, when he held up six fingers. "The sixth. It's the sixth call, Daddy. You're over your daily quota."

Merrick folded his arms, not sure whether to be embarrassed or relieved by her intervention. A glance backward showed that they were still the center of attention. No one else at the table was talking above a whisper, and even Willie had paused in his passing of the dessert to listen.

"He'll call you in the morning," the princess was saying. "Tell Richard to stop harassing him too, or I'm going to turn his phone off."

She waited, and Merrick knew he was going to hear about this later.

"I know that, Daddy. Merrick and Jen haven't left my side all day. They'd be even more useful if they weren't explaining themselves to you every time they turned around."

Merrick winced. Yes, he was definitely going to hear about this later. At least she'd implicated her bodyguard along with him. It would be easier to explain a blanket complaint than a specific one.

"I love you too," she told his phone. "I'm going to finish my dinner now." There was a moment of silence, and then she added, "Bye."

She closed the phone and handed it back to him before turning around. "Well," she announced to the table at large. "That was fun. I hope we didn't miss dessert?"

There was an awkward quiet which Alyssa promptly filled. "There's more right here," she promised, retrieving it from the cluttered tabletop. "It's very good. Merrick? Would you like some too?"

As he sat down again, Collins remarked, "My dad's only called me three times today, Princess. I thought he was the most involved parent a person could have, but if we had a competition it sounds like yours might win."

The princess scooped some of the dessert onto her plate with a shake of her head and a small smile for the mess she made doing it. "He's very protective," she admitted. "He worries whenever I'm out of the country like this. And with the storm..."

"Tell me about it," Collins agreed ruefully. "My dad seems to think I've never been out in a snowstorm in my life. And with the holiday tomorrow, of course, he's convinced that something terrible is happening to keep me away from home."

"You think parents are bad," Myers grumbled. "Try explaining yourself to an eleven-year-old kid."

He got more than one double-take for that remark, and Merrick found himself rapidly reassessing his estimate of Myers' age. His child? Or maybe a sibling's child, a niece or nephew perhaps. He didn't look quite _that_ old.

Collins just clapped him on the shoulder. "You won't get any sympathy from me," he declared. "Alice shouldn't even have your work number."

"It's for her own safety," Myers muttered. "Pass the ice cream, will you?"

So the evening continued, and when dessert was gone everyone seemed as willing to help clean up as they had been to participate in the preparation. Merrick couldn't tell if he'd gotten snowed in with a group of particularly considerate people, or if it was just that no one had anything better to do. He left the actual kitchen work to others, but he did let Cole talk him into moving furniture.

By the time dinner had been completely removed, the dishes taken care of and whatever else went on in the kitchen that seemed to involve a lot of loud voices and laughing, they had created a fairly comfortable sitting area around the tree at the end of the bar. They'd pulled a couple of chairs out of Willie's office, and then they started going through their rooms upstairs and bringing down those chairs as well. They supplemented the setup with two benches from the other end of the bar.

When the last guest emerged from the kitchen, everyone else had given their approval to the arrangement by coming over to sit down. Even Willie took a chair--one of his office chairs, just to one side of the tree--and looked on with a sort of fond appreciation. _I wish you all could be with your families,_ he'd said. _But since you can't..._

Merrick took one of the most uncomfortable seats, on a bench where the princess immediately joined him. He wasn't about to protest. Collins turned the radio up on his way over, and for some reason this prompted Alyssa to sing. Cole joined in, and they sang along with the radio in a way that made Earhardt roll her eyes.

Alyssa saw, but far from being offended, she just waved at Earhardt to help them. Somewhat to Merrick's surprise, she did. Earhardt had a nice voice when she wasn't using it to disparage everyone around her.

"You should sing too," Merrick murmured in the princess' ear.

She turned her head a little, so that they were very close together without actually looking at each other. "I don't know these songs," she said softly.

He didn't know what made him do it: maybe it was the company of strangers, maybe it was the isolation created by the ferocious weather outside. Maybe it was the fact that the princess had threatened to turn off his phone if anyone from home so much as paged him before the night was over. Whatever it was, it made him shift toward her and slide an arm around her shoulders.

Warmed from the inside by her unflinching presence beside him, he whispered, "I don't think it matters."

He was rewarded by her smile of understanding.


End file.
